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Lost Relic Games - GAME JAM

Hosted by Lost Relic Games · #gamedev

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A jam submission

Grapple Blast!View game page

The Matrix meets Interstellar meets Spiderman!

Submitted by skallywags — 3 hours, 17 minutes before the deadline

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Grapple Blast!'s itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Innovation	#15	3.868	3.868
Fun	#16	3.921	3.921
Overall	#17	3.900	3.900
Game Design	#21	3.921	3.921
Theme	#43	4.000	4.000
Art Direction	#67	3.789	3.789

Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Viewing comments 28 to 9 of 28 · Next page · Last page

Aremnant1 year ago(+1)

Quite fun. Game is interesting mechanically, based on bouncing around at various angles/speeds. Controls are simple and intuitive but also bring an element of skill, which is excellent. Game mechanics are slowly introduced throughout the included levels making learning intuitive. Level design is the only element that holds the game back; the most interesting maps were those that acted as puzzles, which were mostly towards the middle of the level range. For other complaints, the ability to switch between a character/mouse oriented camera would be greatly appreciated for planning routes, as would allowing the slow time ability to continue through grappling.

Art direction is good. Enemies and danger are obvious, and their styling works reasonably well together. Music also fits the space/high tech theme. The only complaint here is static spikers are not immediately obvious to be on one side of a wall or the other when moving past them quickly.

Overall, the game is fun with the primary limiting factor being only 12 levels available. Secondary limiting factor is the limited size and number of mechanics seen in any particular level.

Bugs: One pulled myself through a wall that wasn't capped off at the end. Once bounced off a wall and was flung off into deep space at mach 15. Given the nature of the levels, I just reset them and lost all of 10 seconds. Overall a minor concern.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

I think it's a fair criticism that our level design holds us back in some ways. A lot of our levels are more geared towards introducing concepts than exploring them in interesting ways. Maybe we should have focused on fewer concepts and explored each of them more thoroughly.

I agree with you on the spike visibility issue, especially in level 4. I am glad that you only had occasional bugs, but sorry about that.

abansal1231 year ago(+1)

The game looks good and is fun. However, there were some bugs that I ran into. One of them was bouncing off some of the blue platforms on some of the levels. The other one was getting past the level even though I did not hit the green circle. The last one was a bug that pretty much froze the game and almost caused it to crash, but it ended up fixing itself in a few minutes.

But, overall, the game was really good. I thought the music was really fitting to the theme. The idea of the game is simple, but the added mechanics makes it unique. I also thought that it was more challenging than I expected it to be.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

I am glad that you liked the game and I hope it didn't take you too long with the difficult parts you mentioned. I will let our composer know that you liked the music. It sounds like you made it pretty far into the game and I am glad you were motivated enough to stick with it despite the difficulty and any bugs.

I think we unintentionally made it way toooo challenging :). Our intention was to make something that required a level of skill and mastery, but keeping in mind that its a game jam and people may only play your game for a bit. So I think we need to retune the difficulty a bit, after the jam is over. I apologize for the bugs you mentioned. We are working on delivering bugfixes also after the jam is over. The last bug you mentioned is a surprise to me, but we will look into it. Let us know if there is anything else you would like to see patched.

kevinisninja1 year ago(+1)

Very satisfying game to learn and beat.

Controls and directions are simple to execute and hard to master. Played without volume so can't comment on music/sounds. Really enjoyed the velocity, felt like I was only limited by my own abilities and less so by the game's defined bounds. I really enjoyed the bullet re-launch mechanism and it felt good to use in conjunction with the slow-mo, and really fulfilled the "matrix" style game play.

The rotation points were hard to see and I felt like I often lost a lot of momentum using them. The time slow felt hard to use because you couldn't shoot in slow motion and so you ended up having to lead your shot, but that might just a learning curve for the user. There were some minor bugs in hit detection, where the grapple contact would swap to being on a different wall when grappling near a corner.

Other than that, definitely enjoyed the game.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Glad that you liked the game. Thanks for taking the time to play, comment and rate. I think playing with volume on would have added to the impact of the player's actions, but no big deal. I think it's a fair criticism that the swinging points can reduce your momentum. The grappling has a certain speed, and the swinging has a certain speed, and swinging is harder to manuever, so we kept speed lower, but I think that's an oversight on our part that it does detract from the feeling of inertia and momentum. I think I know the bug you are talking about - we have tried to reproduce it but we can only reproduce it once in a while. Hopefully it didn't happen too often for you, but will try to fix it in an update after the jam. I think we need to add a brightness slider, because each monitor has a different color configuration and that might make it harder to see the blue swing points. Please also let us know if there is anything else you would like to see changed or improved.

kkap1 year ago(+1)

Really fun, fasted paced game. It was definitely challenging on some puzzles, but it was very satisfying when I completed them. Really liked the bullet re-launch mechanism and the slow time ability really came in clutch in many of the puzzles. Only issue I had was during grappling when I would sometimes bug through the walls. Overall, very cool graphics and rewarding challenges.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Glad that you liked the game. Thanks for taking the time to play, rate, and comment. You are not the first person to point out that bug, but thanks for mentioning it. Is there anything else you would like us to change or improve?

CrazycucumbersSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

This game is awesome! The art is simple, but distinct, and effective. The music is very fitting of the scene, and it's not too dramatic or anything so it doesn't distract me from the game. I really like the mechanics too. As a player, it makes me feel really cool being able to slow time, grab enemy bullets out of mid-air and use them to destroy the enemy who shot it at me in the first place. Really well done!

A couple of things to note. It's probably because I have an ultrawide monitor, that has a tendency to cause problems with game jam games, but for me, I had to click the bottom portion of each button in order for them to function properly. If I clicked the top half of a button, it would just not register anything. Like I mentioned, probably because I have an ultrawide, but just thought I should mention it. The only other thing I have to say is that the final level of the game feels like a weird place to introduce a new mechanic - that being the bullet-grabbing one. The level before it does have enemies that shoot you, but it's not mentioned that you can do that. Especially because of the fact that the mechanic added a whole new layer of depth, I found myself wishing for more levels where I could utilize it.

Overall, this is an extremely fun game with some great mechanics and great ideas. Absolutely loved it!

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (3 edits)

Wow! Thank you for taking the time to play, rate, and leave all this feedback!

I totally agree with you on the idea of introducing the new pull and throw mechanic in the last (12th) level. We were planning on having 3 more levels, but ran out of time. I'd say I'm still happy with 12 levels for a game jam, but if we knew it was going to be 12, then we would have (and should have) planned to introduce the pull and throw earlier, I totally agree with you on that. As for the level before that introduces enemies but not the pull and throw, we wanted to ease the player in a little bit. We thought that introducing both the pull and throw and the enemies in the same level might be too much. But we will consider in in our fixes to the game, thanks for that feedback.

Thank you for pointing out this bug of only activating the "buttons" if you click on the bottom portion. I want to help clarify what you mean, when you say buttons do you mean the small blue circles that allow you to swing? Internally we call those swing points, but I think buttons is a good name too. We will look into this bug. Can you give me any other details? - are you running at a 60hz monitor, 120 hz, 144 hz, etc? Did you face any lag?

In the rest of the game, did you run into any other issues or bugs? Did you get stuck on any level? Did you have any concerns about controls or pacing? I appreciate you playing all the way to the end if you did encounter any hiccups. We appreciate any feedback you can give us as we try to polish the game after the jam.

I will be happy to play, rate, and give feedback on your game as well!

CrazycucumbersSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Yeah, that's the problem with jams - the time limit doesn't feel that limiting until you're near the end, haha. I totally understand easing the player in - I think that worked out really well.

I should have clarified that further, sorry. I didn't mean any of the actual gameplay mechanics for the buttons having problems, I meant specifically when you have to click the "continue to next level" or "Try again for a better time" buttons. The swing points worked perfectly fine from my experience! My monitor was something kind of weird for monitors - I think it's 200hz.

The only level I got stuck on was the final level, and that's because I'm bad with directions and such. I had a hard time figuring out how to get to the exit portal. I think that's less a fault of the game, and more on me. I didn't really have concerns about controls or pacing, everything made sense to me, personally. It felt like things were introduced and explored for a few levels before new things were added, and it never felt like mechanics were being shoehorned in. It felt like it was becoming a more complete game, which was great!

I will say, I did have one glitch that I couldn't replicate. It was on level 11, the first level with enemies. I don't know how it happened at all, but the grapple line got connected to a swing point pretty far away through a wall. It didn't pull me closer, and it would still let me shoot a grapple line elsewhere, so it was basically just a blue line connected to the player for no reason. Like I mentioned, I couldn't replicate it, I tried a couple of times, but I wasn't paying too much attention to exactly what was going on when it first occurred, to be honest.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Hey, I'm glad you enjoyed and didn't face too many issues. I apologize for the buttons, not sure what happened, maybe you are right - I needed to test on a widescreen monitor to be sure. The other bug you mentioned is unfortunate but luckily not common, I will try to reproduce it on my end. Thanks for playing and all the feedback.

RelicSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Well executed. Watch me fail here:

I'd only add after further reflection that I don't see a need to hold the grapple line to connect. It could just grab onto what ever the guiding line is pointing at. That might interfere with the "swing around" grapple point, but that could be click to release. Think it would be snappier controls for what requires quite snappy reflexes!

Submitted

Technocow Roundup

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (5 edits)

Wow, thanks for capturing footage and commentary. It was nice to see realtime reactions and gameplay. I don't know whether or not you are being sarcastic about the "well executed" after seeing the video, which I am not proud of. I'll take it as sarcasm, but correct me. At this point we are definitely aware that level 4's onboarding is not great. The purpose of level 4 is to teach you to use the slow motion mechanic, because later levels and mechanics will become much easier if you use the slow motion. The blue-purple bar under the player is your slow motion meter, and you can hold down the slow motion button (space) for up to 3 seconds at a time, and it recharges twice as fast.

Our strategy for the onboarding was to be hands off, only give the player button prompts, and let the player experiment and figure out how things work themselves, to handhold as little as possible. But I totally see how level 4 was just too soon. We needed one or two levels before level 4 that introduced the slow motion mechanic more gradually.

I was glad to see you eventually give into using the slow motion mechanic, because that was the entire purpose of level 4. You almost made it to the end, all you had to do was use slow motion more frequently. You can grapple at extreme angles to your destination and avoid spikes, if you just have the time to do so, by using the slow motion.

You are right, you don't need to hold down the button. We were okay with people not holding down the button if they figured out they didn't need to. But what we realized is that encouraging holding down the button for the normal grapple conditions people to hold it down in general, and so when they get to the blue "swing points" they would typically automatically hold it down there as well, which is needed.

There are also some situations in later levels or even in level 4 where you may want to let go of the button halfway to the wall, turn on slow motion, and regrapple somewhere else. And so keeping the grapple enabled only while you hold down the button gives us some versatility in the mechanic which is more explored later on. I would compare it to how you can adjust the height and duration of your jump in platformers by holding down or letting go of jump.

Three things that really puzzled me in your playthrough, which I apologize for. We also have not gotten feedback from other players about these, as far as I know:

No idea why it took so long to load. My only thought is that you didn't double click, but you probably did. We haven't seen this issue on any of the machines we have tried it on, but maybe we haven't tried a big enough variety of machines.
Super surprised to see the character bounce back in the direction they came when they are supposed to travel forward on a angle reflected across the normal of the wall collider. We have not been able to reproduce this on our end, on any machines we tested on, but again I apologize for that contributing to a inferior playing experience.
Also surprised to see that the blue walls that close once you pass through (we call them doors) do not seem to work for you sometimes, which we saw a good amount of in level 4.

I am glad you took out the time to play, and we can never blame a player, but for a dev it is disheartening to see a player give up on level 4, only 1/3rd of the way through the game. Things gets easier from there - levels are simpler, but you get to see plenty of new ideas / mechanics / enemies / obstacles. You even get to grapple an enemy's bullet and throw it back at them, like telekinesis. You can see a lot of these new ideas and mechanics in the trailer:

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (1 edit)

Hey, I think I may have fixed the game breaking bugs that you encountered. Since you can only rate me on the existing build, I will upload the new build once the jam is over. If you would like to check it out, then please reach out to me at any point on the discord. I am @rsaamar. And then I will inform you when the new builds are up after the jam is over.

Bahadir1Submitted1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Really really nice game.I love the grapple mech.Music and sounds are great too.Very well done!

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you for playing, rating, and commenting. Is there anything you would like to see changed, updated, or improved?

co6op13Submitted1 year ago(+1)

Nice work.

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing, rating and commenting! I will check out your game as well.

Is there anything you would like to see changed, fixed or improved? The team will really appreciate any feedback you can give us.

HomeGameCoderSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Challenging and different at the same time... I guess that's good! I just feel the camera could be a little far away so we could see a little bit more. Other than that, solid game! Congrats!

Submitted

15 Light-Minutes Away

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank for playing, rating and commenting! I will check out your game as well.

Is there any other feedback you would like to communicate to the team?

MyPingOSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

WOW what an experience this was! This was a really fun game. I want this to be one of the winners. There were a few bugs, like you could win while being dead BUT, IT WAS FUN AS HELL.

The art with the lighting, the sound effects and the music, the concept and the level design is all so top-notch. You could literally add more levels, add a couple more mechanics, patch up some bugs and sell this game lol

Good job A+ game!

Submitted

Protect the Elements

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (1 edit)

Wow, that's some high praise there. I don't even know if I believe our game should win overall :), but hopefully do somewhat well. I am glad that we entertained you with our game.

Is there anything specific you would like us to change or improve? We are open to feedback from players, anything.

Also, what bugs did you encounter, specifically? Thanks in advance.

MyPingOSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Well, one bug was that you could win while you were dead. So if you died but also reached the finish line before you spawn, you can move on to the next level. You could also use your grapple hook while dead too. There was also a spot in level 11 towards the goal where you could go out of bounds and get respawned even though it did not look like it was out of bounds. Not sure how to explain it, but you know the tiny rocks that you can grapple and hook around in a circular motion? There was one of those rocks on the top side of the stage close to the green portal that if you hooked on to it and went to the portal, you would go out of bounds.

Overall the game is great and I can't think of something to change. Only to keep working on it and add more levels/enemies to the game.

You guys made a great game and should be proud of it!

GalloPintoGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

very cool game, I found the level 2 kind of hard xD

slow mo mecanic is awesome, I liked using all learned at the end to detroy enemies and fly and bouncing around. Taking enemies proyectile and throw them back felt so good

Sometimes the line gets crazy with the targets and sometimes bounce on the blue lines

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you for taking the time to play, rate and comment on our game.

I appreciate the feedback - what specifically do you think made level 2 difficult? How many levels did you complete? Were there are any other levels you found too difficult or suddenly hard?

Yeah, there is an infrequent bug with the grapple, unforunately we didn't have enough time to fix it, but I appreciate you sticking with the game despite it. Hopefully it didn't bother you too often.

GalloPintoGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I played all the levels! I think level 2 is kind on hard because is kind of long and all the spikes, we just get to known the slow mo mecanic and there are a lot of rooms with spikes and hazards, then the next levels feels easy and short, maybe you just need to move it to a later level. The rest of the levels feel more balanced acording to the level number.
I also find the mecanic to return enemy proyectiles really cool! I would like to see more of it but I understand that you guys didn't had enough time to add a lot of levels.

shadowgoatSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Pretty solid game! I like the movement as it feels fluid and a bit chaotic which I like. I also like that the player can grab and redirect the enemy bullets back at them. I thought the slow down time mechanic was pretty useful as well. I had a good time playing, great job!

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thank you for taking the time to play, rate, and comment! I appreciate your kind words. I am glad you got to the very end, so that you could see the combat part of the game too, I know it can be difficult to get through all the levels.

Do you have any specific feedback for the team? Do you have any concerns regarding difficulty or pacing?

I enjoyed your game as well, and hopefully my feedback was helpful.

shadowgoatSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I would say the game is somewhat difficult but adding things like the slowdown mechanic, etc really helped. Also, I think a variety of power-ups or abilities to unlock would both help the difficulty but also motivate the player to get further.

SoulWolfxSubmitted1 year ago(+2)

Interesting game! The visuals and music are great! As for level design, level 4 feels a little out of place after beating level 3 as the difficulty curve skyrocketed after introducing a brand new mechanic. I personally had a rough time trying to complete level 4 as there was also a bug that closes the paths before I can even enter through them. Besides the difficulty curve, this is a very solid game and I enjoyed playing!

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you for checking out the game and leaving feedback!

Sorry about your experience with level 4. I was telling myself that I always have issues with difficulty spikes in game jams, and I did again lol.

The purpose of level 4 was to teach you the slow motion mechanic, and using the slow motion mechanic correctly should make the level a lot easier, but I completely agree that it was out of place. There should have been another level or two leading up to it, where we introduced the slow motion more gradually, and perhaps I should have framed level 4 as a boss fight of sorts, to allow the difficulty to make sense.

I had a great time with your game too, and I hope my feedback was helpful there. Is there any other feedback you would like to communicate to the team about Grapple Blast?

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Also, because of how hard level 4 was, I have to ask: how far did you get (did you finish)? And how was the pacing of the game after beating level 4?

Ryan BeattieSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

This game is awesome! I loved the grapple mechanics and how they are used differently in the game as you progress. Great progression, Level 4 and the last level were pretty high in difficulty for me but it could be because im not good at the game haha Music fit nice, level design is done really well, grappling mechanics are pretty well implemented. Overall it was a fun experience! Great job to everyone who worked on the game!

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Ryan, thank you so much for checking it out, commenting and rating. Definitely level 4 is a bit of a hike in difficulty, although the point of that level is to teach you to use slow motion, which should make it easier, but I agree with you that it should be adjusted or moved later in the game. I would love to know if there is anything you think we should change or improve going forward?

BrumGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Played your game.Almost completed the all levels.In level 4 i discovered the bug.If I hold down the mouse button on the laser then i stuck in the starting place because the laser becomes a wall. And I can shoot the hook when im died.Nice music,likedthe hook mechanic.

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Awesome, thanks for playing! I enjoyed your game as well!

If I may ask, which level did you get stuck on / not complete?

Sorry to hear about the bug. Do you have any other feedback you would like to give to help us improve?

BrumGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I dont completed the last level.I saw the finish and dont wanted to complete the entire level again.Maybe in so big levels needs to be a checkpoint somewhere.On some other feedback - i dont know maybe the slowdown mechanic does not works as i expected.When i cling to the wall the slowdown stops the work and i need again to activate it.

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for your feedback. Your are right, the slowdown disables when you use your grapple. This is intentional. We wanted it to have a feel like the game "superhot" where time slows down or stops when you are not moving, but when you move, time moves too. We think the game would be too slow paced, easy and boring if you could slowdown even during the grapple.

Glad that you got to the last level. That is our only combat focused level, so I am glad you got to play it, but it is difficult for sure. What did you think about the pull and throwing the bullets mechanic? Did it make sense to you?

BrumGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Hmm, i dont know so there is throwing bullets mechanic).This mechanic is hard to discover, in most times i tryed to avoid the enemy bullets.

ATTCreationsSubmitted1 year ago (2 edits) (+1)

Nice game! I always love a grappling hook haha. The slow mo felt good too. The shake effect when you hit the wall was impactful. I would say that the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly. I was already having a hard time on level 4.

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (1 edit)

Thank you for checking out my game and rating. I really enjoyed your game too!

I think that's a fair criticism, level 4 is a step up in difficulty from previous levels. I think it becomes much easier when you constantly use the slow motion, but even then it is a step up from level 3.

Initially, we were not sure how early or late we wanted to introduce the slow motion, so we made level 4 but were not sure where it would be placed. Later, we decided that introducing slow motion early would give the player a better chance in other levels, where slow motion was not required, but it would make the player much easier to control. Its hard to say what the right decision was, but I agree with your feedback, good catch.

In your experience, did you get used to using the slow motion mechanic (space) pretty soon during or after level 4? Or do you feel like the onboarding process for that can be improved? We went with a more hands off approach of just showing the button prompts, but I understand some may want a more thorough tutorial.

How far did you get?

Sorry for the long message, I appreciate your feedback.

pachoncitoSubmitted1 year ago

Nice game, i really enjoy it! The puzzles are very well done and the progression is very good.

Submitted

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you! Did you have any feedback pertaining to what we could change or improve going forward?

I had fun playing your game too!

pachoncitoSubmitted1 year ago

No problem! Well the only problem i had was a bug where when i threw the grappling hook it went through the walls and i could be out of the map and the second time i played it, in the second level i think it was, that when i tried to go through the first door sometimes it closed and didn't let me pass. Thats the only problem but doesnt cut the fun of the game. Sorry for my english, its really bad haha

SamerezzSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Great game loved the slow motion and the mechanic is well executed!

Good job!

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Thank you so much!

Would love to hear from you if there is anything you would like to see us change or improve?

Enjoyed your game as well!

MZONE3D1 year ago(+1)

Really good job. Love the look and feel. Add some puzzles and you've got something great

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Wow, thanks! Definitely, the plan was to add some more puzzles, but we just ran out of time.

We wanted to make a puzzle where you have all the walls rotaing in unison, but rotating 90 only when you hit the wall. So you have to rotate wall A to get wall B to rotate, and get other objects to rotate, and so on. Unfortunately we ran out of time.

We also wanted to add a variety of bullet spread patterns to the enemies to give it more of a bullet hell feel.

I will check out your game too!

WoomekSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Really liked your game there bud!

I was after each level; "mmmm . i can do this faster" ! So addictive which is always a good sign for me!

Great job loved the visuals!

Submitted

Worlds Collapse

skallywagsDeveloper1 year ago

Wow, addictive? Thank you! It was definitely an iterative process and having two weekends to work on it helped.

For the art, our main artist had a limited time window so we did the best we could making temporary art as programmers. Glad you liked it, nonetheless.

Your game was great too!

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